"No," Layla said, "not while I'm around. I promise. Sometimes people get scared of new things, though."

He was so little. That he had ever been this small was a little mind boggling. Compared to Jamie as an adult, the face in front of her was so innocent it was practically unsettling, but it wasn't exactly unburdened.

So in some ways, I'm not the only one who was never really a kid.